Only Human: Family Loyalty
by MegsPencer
Summary: A TCP about a family dealing with two children entering puberty and the fear of mutants


1 "Family Loyalty," 8.21.01  
  
One night, when the boy was 14 and the girl was about to turn 12, the father took them into the living room for a talk. He'd practiced this speech for a long time, but wasn't satisfied with it, even after constant practice in front of the mirror, and his wife. She hated the entire idea of the talk, and refused to give him any feedback, and he blamed a lot of his nervousness on this fact. Still, he decided, leaving the living room that night to go sit on the porch and smoke a couple cigarettes, that he had gotten his message across. Inside, the children were crying, sitting far apart from each other. The girl was pretending that she wasn't crying. The boy didn't even realize he was crying at all.  
  
"He thinks that he can scare the kids out of becoming… you know," the mother said the next day to her secretary, while the children were at school and the parents at work. She laughed nervously and glanced around. "Isn't that silly?" she asked, leaning forward and lowering her voice. "I mean, the kids can't choose what happens to them. And I'm sure they won't… I mean, they say it has a lot to do with genetics, and no one in my family has turned out to be one. Still, I wonder about Jim's family sometimes. Maybe that's why he's so nervous about the kids."  
  
"I knew some folks whose kid turned out to be a mutant," the secretary said in a gossipy tone. "One day the girl starts her period, the next, she's changing things color."  
  
"Changing things color?" The secretary shrugged.  
  
"That's what she does. They keep it very hush-hush, of course, but it's kinda useful, you know? Saves a fortune on paint and hair dye. Not all muties are going around blowing things up like those horrid people on the news. Still, I guess your Jim is pretty against the whole thing, huh?"  
  
"Yes." The mother cast her eyes downwards. "I would be so ashamed if one of the kids were a… were a mutant, but I couldn't just throw them out. They're my children and I love them, no matter what they turned out to be. But it would be so horrible…" She brought her fist down in the desk with a noise that surprised a passing co-worker. In embarrassment, she rose to leave. "If I had know about all of this fourteen years ago," she said in parting, "if I had known what could happen, I would never have had children. Never."  
  
The boy couldn't concentrate in school. The girl burst into tears at lunchtime. She'd started her period a few days before, but was afraid to tell her mother. She knew that her mother would be frightened (this is a difficult time in all of our lives), and would tell her father, and she would do anything to keep him from having another talk with her (you will be noticing some changes in your bodies). She was scared and confused, and worst of all, doing poorly in her classes (some of these changes are normal, and some of them are not). Her teacher seemed to single her out at every chance he could, and she hadn't done the homework, though she hadn't done anything else. It could have been her imagination, but he seemed to single out all of the girls in his sixth grade class who were taller than average, the ones developing breasts or showing any acne. In fact, as the girl though back on this, she realized that he had been doing this all year. It simply hadn't affected her until recently. She'd gained 12 pounds and grown 3 inches in the last six weeks.  
  
The girl was miserable at home, and miserable in school. The boy burst into tears in the locker room, sitting on the toilet and wondering why life was so cruel. His father's words repeated over and over in his head (I'm not going to tolerate any deviation in this family). He sat miserably through his classes (this family is a unit), and tried to make himself invisible (and what each of us does casts a light on the rest of us). However, time went on, and his voice did not change. The other guys on the basketball team teased him for his soprano, but privately, he was thrilled (there will be no mutants living under my roof). He wished every night for only one thing, and that was to wake up in the morning looking like a little boy.  
  
"I hate to see the stress the kids are under," the mother confided in her secretary. The woman smiled understandingly. They were out of the office, getting a quick cup of coffee between meetings. They were good friends. The secretary, it turned out, had two daughters, one 15 and one 17. She could understand the mother's concerns. "And Jim has been a wreck. I can see this whole issue is tearing him up. The other night, he asked me how long puberty takes, anyways. He wasn't very happy when I said it could take years. I don't know how long we can go on living like this."  
  
"You should tell him to relax," the secretary said, gently laying a hand on her boss's arm. "There isn't anything you can do but wait. He should spend some time with the kids. Maybe it'll change his mind about making them leave. Just in case, you know. I mean he is their father after all." The mother shook her head.  
  
"You don't know Jim. He's decided that he's not having a… a mutant living in his house." She lowered hr voice saying the word, like someone saying a dirty word in church and not wanting anyone, even God, to overhear. "He's serious. You know, he's been a member of that group, the Friends of Humanity, for years now. He was a big supporter of Graydon Creed's presidential campaign. He still gets riled up talking about it."  
  
"We were a Kelly household," the other woman said, picking up her things and checking her hair in the shop window. "He made much more sense than that Creed man. I always thought of burning crosses when I heard Creed talk, I don't know. He reminded me of my grandfather. Kelly, though, that man was smart. When he talked, people listened." She sighed. "You have to admit, it is suspicious that both of these men, who were very different except for their views on mutant registration and control, were assassinated while running for president."  
  
"But Sue, they proved that Kelly was killed by a human after announcing that his views on mutants had changed." Sue sighed, and followed her boss into their building.  
  
"It is a tricky subject. Reminds me of the '60s."  
  
"You're showing your age, dear. But really, what are you comparing this to? The civil rights movement?" The secretary shrugged.  
  
"I was just saying. There are similarities though. People can't choose to be mutants any more than they can choose their race."  
  
"Yes, but African-Americans haven't been known to be able to read people's minds and blow up buildings with a thought." Sue shrugged again.  
  
"I was just saying."  
  
The mother thought about their conversation later that night. She lay in bed with her laptop open to one of her major accounts, but she wasn't thinking about work. She was thinking about her children sitting at the dinner table silently, and her husband eating in front of the television. She was thinking about the way her daughter slouched in her seat, perhaps to hide the growth spurt she'd been going through. She was thinking about the prayer she'd heard her son whispering before he went to sleep (please, please, please, just let me stay the same). She stood and went into the bathroom, locking the door behind her and sitting on the toilet, just trying to clear her head. Her husband finally knocked on the door, and asked if she was all right. She lied to him and came to bed. He wanted to have sex, but she lied again and said she was on her period and had a headache. He didn't argue. She could feel his uneven breathing next to her after the lights were out, and knew that he couldn't sleep either. She didn't speak to him, but thought, sadly, that even if their children did not become mutants, they might just hate their father when this was all over anyhow. That made her sad.  
  
A couple weeks later, the mother came into her daughter's room the night before the girl was to turn 12. The girl lay on her back with the hiccups and an icepack on her leg.  
  
"What happened to you?" her mother asked, sitting on the side of the bed and pointing to the icepack. Her daughter lifted the pack to show and ugly bruise.  
  
"I got hit with a tennis ball in gym. I'm such a klutz these days." The mother smiled.  
  
"That's normal for girl's your age." The daughter smiled, and hiccupped.  
  
"Normal is good." The mother stopped smiling, and reached into her back pocket for an envelope.  
  
"This is for you honey. I want you to keep it with you all the time, okay?" The girl took the envelope, and fingered it uneasily.  
  
"What is it?" she asked.  
  
"Nothing much. Just keep it, just in case." She leaned forward, and kissed her child on the forehead. "I love you."  
  
"I love you too mom," the girl said, wondering what was going to happen next. Her mother smiled, and left the room. Her daughter turned the envelope over a couple times, and then opened it. Inside were a stack of $20 bills, more then she'd ever seen in one place. She counted them three times. There was $500 there, and a note. 'Just in case,' it read. 'I will always love you.' The girl knew what the note meant, and what the money was for, and, much to her disgust, she started to cry again.  
  
The children ate breakfast together, after their parents had left for work.  
  
"Did she give you one too?" the boy asked his sister. She nodded. "What are you going to do?" She shrugged. "I don't know either."  
  
"Do you think I'm going to be a mutant, Joel?" she asked.  
  
"I dunno. But I promise that I will take care of you, no matter what you are. Even if you end up with three noses and two heads." She burst into tears, but laughed at the same time, because it was such a ridiculous thought, and because, as far as she knew, it was fully possible. 


End file.
